


Floating Lanterns

by CoffeeMilkAndTea



Category: Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi | Spirited Away
Genre: F/M, it’s sad but you’re gonna be happy about it, japanese traditions, star crossed shit sorta fix it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-05
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 11:48:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22126639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CoffeeMilkAndTea/pseuds/CoffeeMilkAndTea
Summary: Chihiro writes to someone she can’t remember.
Relationships: Haku | Nigihayami Kohakunushi & Ogino Chihiro, Haku | Nigihayami Kohakunushi/Ogino Chihiro
Comments: 13
Kudos: 142





	Floating Lanterns

Chihiro writes to Haku in the beginning. 

She doesn’t quite know what or _who_ she’s writing to, but she has the feeling that she really should be writing to _someone_ , and that someone had to do with when her parents and she were mysteriously gone for three months, when the car was covered in leaves and they found themselves outside of a tunnel with a smiling god covered in moss when it hadn’t been before.

At first, she pretends that it belongs to a diary. 

But she writes: _To whom this concerns, thank you for getting me safely to my new home._ Feeling foolish, she takes a Polaroid she’d taken of herself next to a pile of books and pasted it in the letter-diary entry.

•

It’s summer, the kind that makes your head muggy and bouncy, like konyaku that’s been all heated up. Just grey, speckled mush with no nutritional value.

With cicadas loud as human neighbors, one day her friend asks upon her porch:

“The town’s going to float lanterns. Do you want to come?” 

“Sure,” Chihiro answers automatically, then wonders.

•

An hour before the event finds her ripping out entry page after entry page- in a way, it really had become her diary, and in a strange way, it feels like she’s losing these precious recollections. 

But she isn’t _really,_ she tells herself. She remembers them fine, and it’s not like Chihiro’s losing her _name._

She pauses mid-tear of her notebook, wondering briefly at this comparison. It struck an odd cord in her, like a plucked shamisen when there shouldn’t of been one.

She resumes tearing out the entries.  
It feels _right._

•

“Are you ready?” Her friend asks, laughter on her lips and a smear of sweet sticky sauce on her cheek. The river looks like it’ll feel so good against her feet. Chihiro shivers with anticipation, hiking up the cotton of her yukata and wading into the river. The letters are wadded with the lantern, intended to catch fire. 

The river feels just as delicious as she had thought- and for some reason, the image of a shoe floats into her vision. 

She pauses as she holds the lit vessel in the water, lost in wonder. 

The boat slips out of her hands from a sudden surge in the current, and with a yelp, Chihiro is knocked down with it. 

Laughing, she scrambled out of the river, shivering with it in the hot air, and watches her lantern disappears into the night, joining the thousands of others.

•

It’s Obon; when spirits from the world come to join this one. For some reason, Chihiro feels the need to attend the festival this year. It feels important.

Her friends adamantly refuse to dance with her, laughing at how country bumpkin it is. It’s _traditional,_ Chihiro wants to protest. She understands their protests though, and waves them on to enjoy the stands and food. 

The drums and cymbals rattle through the night air; a flute is shrieking, a high, eerie sound.  
Chihiro doesn’t understand the steps quite at first, so she stumbles through the songs, trying her best to emulate the wrinkled hands of the grandmothers and the solemn grace of their protogees. 

It becomes easier as time goes on, and soon enough she tears through the rings with the rest of them, blood thrumming with the music.  
Sticks-fans-towels are passed through the crowd, and each of them have their own style, but is simple enough, and Chihiro finds herself smiling, sweating as she is. 

Was there always so many masked individuals? She wonders. A fool’s mask gambols in the ring across from her; a noh in the next, plastic and shining in the lantern-light. 

As she turns to the best of the music, she sees the glimpse of a dragon mask. Chihiro’s heart stops.

The boy next to her has a curtain of hair- and it _is_ a boy; because he is wearing a blue haori with white underpinnings.

She pauses in her dancing to look at him- and in doing so, witnessed his grace, looping and inhuman. 

However, it is only for a moment: the dragon boy pauses in his dancing as well, looking at her.

They stand in the ring, lost in silent wonder of each other. “Come on,” the boy says at last. “We should not stand in the way.”

Mute, Chihiro lets herself get dragged out of the ring and into the crowd. The boy smells like how rivers smell; humid and crisp all at once: the smell of silt, growing things and fresh water.

There is a moment where he looks at her, and it is a weighted moment indeed, though it should not be, really- but the white dragon mask is both familiar and imposing.

“I got your letters,” he says to her at last, almost lost in the din of the crowd. 

Chihiro’s eyes widen, and her knees go weak. Her letters- those were _priva_ —-

...oh. She stares at him some more. _To whom it concerns,_ she recalls. 

“Are you the one I...”

A finger against her lips shushes her, but the dragon mask dips in a slow nod.

Goosebumps ripple over her skin from the action, and she remembers, full force: Obon are the nights when the veil is the thinnest.

Instead she smiles, because even if she can’t remember who this boy is, she was clearly meant to give him her letters. To see him like this, tonight under the lantern-lit sky, against the tattoo of drums.

“You dance beautifully,” she tells him, because it’s true.

She thinks she can sense a returning smile under the mask, and a squeeze confirms it on her arm. “I enjoyed watching you more,” the boy confesses. 

•

They sit together on the grassy knoll where the fireworks display is meant to be seen best. Her friends have been fended off easily enough with a few texts- she hadn’t expected them to be concerned to begin with, but was touched by it.

The dragon boy’s hands are cold, and it’s better than a fresh drink. 

“What’s your name?” She asks. It’s strange, and even knowing what she knows, she doesn’t have all of the pieces still. Chihiro feels like knowing his name is very important.

To her surprise, the mask shakes back and forth. No. 

“You remembered it once before,” comes out a low voice. Chihiro can’t tell if it’s mournful or merely mysteriously matter-of-fact.

“I’ll remember,” she promises him, smiling. “I’ll just have to do it again.” 

She watches him go slack with what looks like relief.

•

“I’ll come back next year,” Chihiro shouts over the sound of the fireworks. “I’ll send you more letters!”

The hand gripping hers squeezes so as to be painful, and she grins past it, tearing up, her heart overflowing. It feels like this person should be very important to her. He’s already wormed his way into her heart all over again, with his quiet affection.

“I’ll see you here!” She shouts again, and turns just in time to watch the mask nod in acquiesce. 

She watches as a single droplet of water rolls off of the chin of the mask and makes up her mind. “It’s a promise! You promise too, okay!”

“I promise,” she hears, a choked out yell against the noise of the fireworks. 

_It doesn’t matter if I don’t remember,_ Chihiro thinks fiercely with a bright smile. _I’ll make even more memories with this person._

**Author's Note:**

> Author’s Note: These are drawn from my own personal experiences with both lantern floating and dancing at Obon Odori festivals. Lantern floating is a way in japan to get messages to the spirit world, often to your ancestors and lost loved ones, and Obon Festivals are meant to dance for your loved ones beyond this realm, often with them in attendance. And Konyaku is a jelly-like grey slab of substance! In fact, it’s used as a diet aid at times. It’s also said to be the favorite food of King Enma, one of the judges of the underworld.


End file.
